It’s been a long week of combing through portfolios, weighing pros and cons, debating back and forth with my co-author Aenne. But I believe we’ve settled on a sweet roster of artists to start replacing those doofy temp assets with real, actual, paid-for artwork. Without further ado, I’d like to announce the artists!

It didn’t take long for Molly to win us over. While her art style isn’t what I expected I’d crave for Arcade Spirits, I decided it give her the old matchbook art test (“Can you draw this parrot?”) with Naomi in the place of a parrot… and she knocked it out of the park with a slew of really great variations on the character to pick from. That sealed the deal for this skeptic, to be certain.

Adorable. We’re looking forward to working with Molly to really fine-tune and nail the art style of Arcade Spirits, and to bring our cast of characters to life!

Taylor’s beautiful natural and surrealistic landscapes certainly caught my eye. But can she draw arcades, I wondered? So, I asked her. And this was her reply.

And that’s only a one-hour sketch with no real refinement or tweaking. In order words, she’s already this good and this isn’t even her final form. I look forward to her evolving into Tayloruru, the Legendary Art Pokemon.

I feel kind of ashamed having Justin on this project. Why? Because he is too good for us. He’s super professional with tons of game industry experience and some amazeballs pixel art landscapes which make me want to fall on my knees and weep. He’ll be doing artwork for Mr. Moopy’s Magic Maze and Fist of Discomfort.

When you need flyers, posters, logos, and fake corporate branding… who you gonna call? How about a professional graphic designer? Seriously, check out his digital art and his stickers, he’s got a wide variety of really clean work in there.

Skilled in a wide variety of traditional and digital styles, Emma will be providing additional art for the Wyvern’s Keep game in Arcade Spirits, and it’s going to be just lovely.

There you have it, folks! The Arcade Spirits art crew, in living color. And these quickie sketches you see are just scraping the tip of the iceberg, to mix metaphors in a horrible fashion! It only gets better from here.

We’ll be integrating their work into our game as it’s made available. Want to be the first to see? Join the Patreon! For just $1+ you get one-week-early access to these developer blog posts, and $5+ gets you monthly demo builds as they become available. If you contribute $25 or more over the lifetime of the game’s development, you get a free copy of the final game! What do you have to lose!? Well, other than a few bucks. Sign up today! And if you can’t afford to sign up, we got you covered — select pieces of art will be posted here to this dev blog after Patrons get their sneak peeks.

Today’s developer blog post is all about art, and how much we crave it.

We hunger for art. Our palms sweat and our eyes itch. We wish to consume art. It will be pushed into every pore of our body until we are saturated with its visual goodness. And then, at our most perfect moment when we are one with flesh and art, we shall Transform into Something Greater.

(For new folks, Arcade Spirits is a visual novel set in the alternative year 20XX in which arcades never faded away. It’s a workplace romantic comedy and if you like games and/or love, you’ll dig it.)

If you’re interested in drawing character art for Arcade Spirits in the visual novel style (anime or western), or you know someone who’d be keen, let us know! We’ll need your contact info, portfolio links, your typical pricing, and so on. This is not a free gig (artists die from exposure) or a short term thing — we’re looking for someone we can collaborate with over several months to a year, and will pay fair rates for contracted work. If you’ve got the open schedule and we like what we see, we can bust the piggy bank for ya.

Here’s what we’re looking at, approximately, so you know what you’re in for.

Character art will be head down to upper thighs, sized for 1080p, on a transparent background. Some may require layers which can be recolored and composited together (such as the player’s image).

Seven core cast members have 1-3 alternative poses or costumes, and several facial expressions.

Approximately 10-20 side characters, with no alternate costumes and only a few expressions.

Some “CG” illustrations, moments where characters are depicted at key points in the plot.

Will collaborate with the writers on the broad strokes but have some freedom to make suggestions about attire, accessories, etc.

Since I know a lot of creative sorts from my Impromanga / Improfanfic / ULTRA / Neverwinter Nights days I wanted to throw the first fishing lures out here on the dev blog and see who bites. So, can you draw? Does someone you know and love like to draw? Hook a fellow up and let’s see where this goes.

One of the common things developers share with their backers is development roadmaps. Since we figured ours out recently, I thought I’d share it with you.

Date

Patreon Release

Writing Work

Other Work

July

ep02

ep03 pt1, ep04 pt1

Aug 1?

ep03 pt1

ep03 p2, ep04 pt2

Sep 1

ep03 pt2

ep05 pt1

story finalization, asset list finalization

Nov 1

ep04 pt1

ep05 pt2

artist shopping

Dec 1

ep04 pt 2

ep06 pt1

contractors working

Jan 1

ep05 pt1

ep06 pt2

bartop demo unit, PAX arrangements

Feb 1

ep05 pt2

ep07 pt1

Mar 1

ep06 pt2

ep07 pt2

finalizing PAX demo

Apr 1

ep07 pt1

ep08 pt1

PAX East!

May 1

ep07 pt2

ep08 pt2

integrating finalized art and music

Jun 1

ep08 pt1

done!

integrating finalized art and music

July 1

ep08 pt2

integrating finalized art and music

Beyond

final assets

Right now we’re writing two episodes at the same time — Aenne’s in charge of directing 03, I’m directing 04. These conclude the first act of the game, episodes 02/03/04, which represent the player rising into their role within the arcade and staging a grand event.

Once we complete that and start in on the more asset-heavy Obligatory Beach Vacation Episode in 05, we’ll be finalizing exactly what assets we need for the game, and will start shopping around for artists and musicians to help us flesh out the content.

With some of that final content baked in we can work on a demo unit and hopefully bring it to PAX East. We’ve got plans — notably to use a bartop-style arcade unit to demo it — but it depends on the timing.

Finally… we’re aiming to have the game completed in Q3 or Q4 of 2018.

I figured you’d enjoy this peek behind the curtain… but all of this is subject to change, as conditions shift, plans go awry, and development refocuses priorities. No game has ever 100% stuck to a roadmap and we likely won’t either. Consider this a work in progress, much like the game itself.

EDIT: Disregard the paragraph I had here about not meeting the August milestone. We are go for launching on Tuesday!

Thanks for walking this path with us. We’re looking forward to the months ahead!

Many visual novels don’t allow much customization of your protagonist, if any. Typically you either define nothing, or you’re defining name only, or MAYBE name and two gender options. Since Arcade Spirits is leaning harder on the RPG side of the spectrum (emphasis on roleplaying, not dice throwing) I wanted a more ambitious character creator than that.

The target I was aiming for was the character creator from Hustle Cat, an adorable VN about working in a cat cafe. There, you’d pick from three skin tones, and two hair styles (long and short) as well as your pronoun (he/she/they). Pretty robust by VN standards, and not too hard to implement, since you just need six variants of the protagonist every time you want to show them.

Nice variety, plenty of representation, all good, let’s call it a day and go home. Right?

Nah. We can do better.

Behold the glory of the latest version of the protagonist creator, coming in the August build of the game!

What you see there was a rough developer test of whether or not my crazy new idea would work. It had the same attributes as the last one — hair color, hair length, skin tone, pronoun — but instead of having six variants and needing six images on disk, I stored distinct LAYERS and then recolored them dynamically through code. Now, you could pick not only hair length, but hair COLOR. Oh, and clothing color, because why not?

Here we see the default Ari Cader (top) and a customized protagaonist (bottom). The artwork’s still temporary, I found a creative commons character sprite, but it’s good for proof of concept.

So I went to the renpy discord to show off my work, all proud of it, and my fellow creators gave me this terrific piece of feedback:

“That UI is terrible.”

…thanks buddy, that’s definitely the thing I was actually looking for feedback on, not the hours of work I’d just done on the character system. But hey! While I was going hog wild on customization… why not customize THAT, too?

The default is still our retro neon, but you can also (from the Preferences menu) pick a cool blue pixel motif, or a plain ‘ol grey box if it really sticks in your craw. Play the game how you want, AS who you want to play.

Arcade Spirits is aiming for something a wee bit too ambitious for my first VN project, but I don’t care. I want to do this RIGHT. Do it with all my capability, all my effort, holding nothing back. And that means going the distance for features that will help players get into the game and snuggle in, cozy-like. Hope you enjoy it!

Visual Novels tend to have endings based on what character you choose to romance. Most obfuscate this path — it just sorta happens based on a series of arbitrary decisions made along the way — but we’re planning to make it a wee bit more obvious. You’re scoring relationship points that you can see, and eventually, you’ll be asked to pick who you want to focus on based on who you’re already hitting it off well with. (Probably narrowed down to top two or top three, to prevent someone being off by one point from a character they wanted to woo, but trust me — that’ll be an edge case.)

But… visual novels ALSO have hidden endings, based on characters you normally can’t woo. Typically you have to meet a MUCH more obscure set of criteria to unlock those paths… either clearing the game multiple times, or finding easter egg level hidden treats, etc. I’ve already got one hidden ending in the game, which is a bit less hidden (reject the main story completely and go get a different job) but I’m talking hidden romances, here.

We’ve got two characters that could be ripe for such endings: your childhood friend and your phone. …trust me, this makes sense in context. I’d love to include paths for them, but they don’t have relationship points in the traditional sense. So, there’s a couple ways to do this.

Purposefully avoid collecting relationship points, and end up with a minimum amount.

Have “Basically” be your most popular identity trait.

Have a handful (3-5) of moments where you choose to trust or encourage them.

Pick as many “Player is self-reliant” moments as possible, rather than calling for help.

I asked my Patrons to vote in a poll, and I won’t reveal the results juuust yet… but I’m still looking for feedback, so feel free to leave some in the comments below. Thanks!

By now, all $5+ backers have a copy of the latest demo! I’d love to have your feedback on it. It’s a complete episode, which is a rare treat, and I’m hoping you can sink your teeth into it soon. And if you aren’t a Patreon backer, it’s not too late to get on board and play the July demo!

For this week, let’s talk about an interesting cross section of various things, as dragged out into the light by a TV show.

So last weekend I been binged on Halt and Catch Fire, an AMC series about the early era of computing… the PC revolution of the 80s, the earliest online gaming and communities, and this season the early world wide web of the 90s. I lived through these periods of time, even if I didn’t see what was going on behind the curtain, so I thought it’d be a kick to see the industry in that era.

And it is. Mostly. And gave me food for thought.

See, like most modern adult TV dramas, most of the conflict comes about from spectacularly grey area characters, packed tight with massive amounts of flaws. We’re dealing with some DEEPLY dysfunctional people, perpetually sleeping with each other, breaking marriage vows, lying when they have no good reason to lie, hiding things from each other, etc. It’s all internal conflict due to being horrible people. Y’know, like every other AMC show out there (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, etc.)

Which kinda sucks, because I didn’t come to see middle aged white dudes having marital problems, I came to see the dawn of the era of computing and video games. And it’s a 40/60 ratio of that to staple shenanigans. But that 40, well… that’s a damn good 40, despite the 60.

Arcade Spirits takes place in a world where the crash never happened, where gaming is taken seriously, and your character is navigating a world they’d never even known existed. It’s about business decisions, customer support, dreams, aspirations, compromises, and adulting as hard as you can. (“Adulting” meaning “To take on adult responsibilities in an adult fashion,” aka “Doing your own laundry and filing your taxes” and such.) But unlike Halt and Catch Fire, I want most of my conflict to come from the decisions you have to make due to OUTSIDE factors… crisis points, unforeseen problems, situations to deal with. Not due to jerks being immature jerks when they’re supposed to be adults.

Yes, Naomi and Gavin have differing ideals, and have trouble getting along. Yes, the characters each have flaws, and need to address those flaws. But true friends stab you in the front, and so will these characters, rather than sneaking around and being stupid just for the sake of drama. They’ll adult and adult hard, rather than being a junior high school student in adult clothing.

Now, that said, there’s another angle on all this which IS a bit more irksome.

Namely, in order to achieve my dream of publishing an indie game… *I* need to be the one to adult, and adult hard. Paperwork. Budgets. Planning. Team coordination. Which is bonkers because I haven’t done a team project since high school, preferring self-reliant little projects like Neverwinter Nights modules or novels. (“little” being subjective.) It’s big. It’s scary. It’s borderline terrifying. But… I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna be an adult. And I’m gonna do it with a minimum of drama.

It’s not too late to get in on the Patreon update for July! This month we have two full episodes of the demo for your enjoyment. Pledge $5 or more to get access, and if you pledge $25+ total over the course of development, you’ll get the finished game in the end! …okay, enough shilling. Today, I’d like to open a discussion:

What would an arcade game be like in 2017, if the industry hadn’t collapsed in the 90s?

Oh, arcade games still exist, yes. Very modern, very flashy, with HD screens and so on. But these are invariably shooting, racing, or ticket spewing gambling boxes. What would a classic joystick based arcade game look like if it was produced in 2017…?

Honestly? I’m not sure.

In the world of Arcade Spirits the industry kept ticking right along without a ton of changes from the 80s, 90s, and onwards. But the Funplex, your home away from home in this game, is largely packed with 80s/90s fare as it’s an old-fashioned place tucked away in a forgotten corner. That “solves” the problem for me, as I only need a few modern games on display, but I am curious and looking for ways to say… where would gaming go?

I think the best place to look would probably be Japan, which still has a thriving scene, but even then you’re looking at evolved games like card games, music games, and sports games. Very few joysticks. 100 Yen, one of the documentaries I mentioned in an earlier post, covers all these things nicely… but still doesn’t feel like it fits the gap between the 90s and 10s.

So, let’s chat about it. What do you imagine when you think of an arcade scene that never really died out or experienced drastic overhaul? What would you want from an arcade, in an ideal world? What dreams do you have? Let’s talk. Leave comments below! Thanks.

I recently picked up some visual novels in a Humble Bundle, in an effort to learn more about the genre / scope out the competition / get ideas for how others are using RenPy / etc. But I have to admit… after playing a bit of each of them, none of them really clicked with me.

Most had little to no choices to make. Generally you’d be sitting there watching action unfold with no say in the matter, often enduring massive exposition dumps or overly elaborate descriptions of some really mundane actions. (Brushing your teeth could take 5-7 text boxes, it felt like.) I saw little to no opportunity for customization or roleplaying. Instead of playing a game, I was being dragged by the nose through someone else’s story being told “Isn’t this awesome?!”.

Maybe I just don’t get this genre. Maybe it’s not my cup of tea. I love the idea of it — of marrying character-driven narrative to beautiful art to good music and allowing the reader to participate actively — but I haven’t found a VN yet that really works for me. I’m not doubting they exist, but so far, no luck.

Let me tell you what Arcade Spirits already has, which these novels didn’t. Then you make the call if you like what I’m serving up.

First off, your protagonist. Pick your pronouns, pick your hair style, pick your skin tone, pick your name. As the game goes along, your responses — which are frequent, at least 2-3 per scene — are personality-driven. You express yourself the way you want to, within the limitations of a choice-powered visual novel, and the world responds.

Second, your ability to influence the world. (A lot of this is smoke and mirrors, I’ll admit, if only because I’m not frickin’ Sierra On-Line and I don’t want to arbitrarily Game Over you.) Quite often you’ll be called on to deal with a situation, some conflict or crisis or difficulty, and how you choose to approach that problem is your call. I mean, it’s not an open world RPG, you have a menu of options… but you have a MENU, period. You can make a choice.

All of that sounds good, I’m hoping, but there’s another key difference and I’m a little more worried about this one: romance and melodrama. ’cause I’ve seen PILES of each in these games, sometimes explicitly saying up front YOU CAN BANG THESE SPECIFICALLY THEMED GIRLS WHOA. Pigeon dating simulator! Dad dating simulator! A death game / dating simulator! And so on. And… Arcade Spirits is not that.

For the first arc of the game, there’s some flirting, but you’re primarily in a workplace comedy and dealing with the day-to-day affairs that come with that. You’re not saving the world, you don’t have superpowers, and we aren’t getting right to the banging. In fact, there isn’t any banging. There’s DATING to be sure, and relationships, and love… but it’s not a hentai game. There won’t be some sly patch you download off the website to turn on the nudity.

So, this leaves me mildly anxious. A visual novel is a niche of a niche of a genre, not a moneymaker by any means. And now I’m saying “All these conventions of VNs? I’m not doing those, I’m doing something different.” Will VN fans eschew Arcade Spirits? Will it stumble out of the gate and flop? Am I freaking out over nothing?

Ultimately, time will tell. But you know how you can help? Join the Patreon, get monthly demos, and give us feedback. (The July demo is coming up soon! If you join July 1st, you’ll get two full episodes of the game!) Let us know if this is the direction you want to go. And together, we’ll make something grand.

Recapping for folks who dun wanna click through, it’s a quote from the director of Wonder Woman, Patty Jenkins:

“Did you say cheesy? Cheesy is one of the words banned in my world. I’m tired of sincerity being something we have to be afraid of doing. It’s been like that for 20 years, that the entertainment and art world has shied away from sincerity, real sincerity, because they feel they have to wink at the audience because that’s what the kids like. We have to do the real stories now. The world is in crisis.

I wanted to tell a story about a hero who believes in love, who is filled with love, who believes in change and the betterment of mankind. I believe in it. It’s terrible when it makes so many artists afraid to be sincere and truthful and emotional, and relegates them to the too-cool-for-school department. Art is supposed to bring beauty to the world.”

I covered these themes quite a bit in Floating Point, which deals with this problem from the Internet side of things. Internet humor, spawned forth from the fetid pools of the chans, relies on the “u mad bro” punchline. If you “get” to someone, if you upset them, then you’ve succeeded at humor because you made them have feelings. Feelings are not allowed in the ironic age, only a detached and virtuous apathy which keeps your emotional distance from things, acting like a suit of armor against attack.

But in Arcade Spirits, apathy is not a virtue. Those who follow their passions, express themselves honestly, and are willing to be vulnerable as a result are rewarded. It’s not blind optimism — plenty of plot points revolve around the risk you take in doing so, in the practical needs of life — but that idealism remains at the heart of the story. And maybe it will be “cheesy” as a result, but I wanted a game that’s alight with hope after having such a dour and grey-area story in Floating Point, after all that’s happened in current events.

I make no apologies for Arcade Spirits being sincere. It’s by design. And hopefully, that’ll resonate with you as well.

Over Memorial Day weekend, my family went on a classic beach vacation — rent a house, go crawl the boardwalk, eat food that’s 87% grease by volume, things like that. And ~as is tradition~ for these outings, I took this opportunity to visit some boardwalk arcades.

I’ve got happy childhood memories from mid-atlantic beaches and their arcades. Notably Hampton Beach, up in New Hampshire, which had several absolutely stellar arcades in the late 80s and early 90s. I remember wiling many an hour away on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, after bopping from classic to classic, experiencing a wide variety of games. Fumbling with lightguns that were just a bit too large for me. Having Dad work the gas pedal while sitting on his lap and playing RoadBlasters. Good times, good times.

But that’s through nostalgia goggles, and many a decade gone by. How fares these beach arcades in 2017…? Let’s just say I went in with bottom-tier expectations and they did not entirely disappoint. (More below the click. Lots of photos, so I wanted to give you a chance to not load ’em if you’re just browsing the blog…)

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